Cassias do Sul Deaflympics Departure Ceremony... Aiming for Thirty Medals

Eighty-Two Athletes Compete in Eight Events

On the 18th at 2 p.m., the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism will hold a send-off ceremony for the national team of the Summer Deaflympics (Olympics for the hearing impaired) at the Olympia Hall of the Olympic Parktel in Seoul. About thirty members of the team, including team leader Shim Gye-won, will participate and pledge to perform well. The event, hosted by the International Committee of Sports for the Deaf (ICSD), will take place in Caxias do Sul, Brazil, from the 1st to the 15th of next month, lasting fifteen days. Approximately 3,000 athletes from seventy-nine countries around the world will compete in twenty sports. South Korea will participate with eighty-two athletes and sixty-eight officials in eight sports: athletics, badminton, football, judo, shooting, swimming, table tennis, and taekwondo. The goal is to win thirty medals. South Korea first participated in the Summer Deaflympics in 1985 in Los Angeles, USA. In the 2009 Taipei, 2013 Sofia, and 2017 Samsun games, the country achieved its best-ever overall ranking of third place three times in a row. Oh Young-woo, the 2nd Vice Minister of the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, said, "We expect the team to achieve good results as they have trained hard under the restricted conditions due to COVID-19," and added, "We hope all related personnel will do their best to ensure the athletes compete safely and healthily and return home safely."